Editorial: Sugden Park decision is next stop in redevelopment road

A post on Bayshore Drive welcomes locals and tourists to the area. In recent years, Bayshore has seen improvements in infrastructure, crime rates and beautification and continues to see changes.(Photo: Ashley Collins/Staff)

It’s encouraging and exciting to see progress made on the long road toward transforming the Bayshore Drive area of East Naples from its seamier days of decades past into a cultural arts and community destination.

The latest move by Collier County commissioners to consider expanding the original vision of a cultural arts center and redevelopment project on county-owned land along Bayshore Drive into nearby Sugden Park risks creating a bump in the road, however.

Certainly, bumps in the road can be navigated safely if you slow down. But is slowing down and veering into a park in the best interests of reaching the ultimate destination on an initiative that’s already more than a decade in the making?

County government bought 17 acres along Bayshore Drive for $5.35 million in 2006 with a long-term vision of redevelopment. By now, most sizable coastal tracts have been developed. Even so, a December appraisal put the property’s value at $3.7 million, less than what county government paid before the Great Recession.

In 2012 the property was rezoned to allow 40 residences, a parking garage, some 48,000 square feet of businesses and a 350-seat performing arts center, along with a maximum height of four stories, county officials said.

Commissioners recently heard proposals from two developers. One confines redevelopment to the Bayshore Drive area, not utilizing Sugden Park. Another developer suggested two options, one that utilizes some park land and another concept that doesn’t.

All three ideas envision the performing arts center if money can be raised for it by community groups, as well as potentially a couple hundred residences.

In considering building the center in Sugden Park, three commissioners aligned with the idea of ensuring that the Bayshore Drive project has what was repeatedly called “a critical mass.” That, to us, is development-speak for an intensive amount of construction on limited acreage.

No one should be surprised that more intensive development and a performing arts center is the vision for Bayshore Drive. What we believe should raise the community’s antennae is that county leaders might allow it to spill over into Sugden Park for a several-story building.

Commissioners didn’t make a decision on which approach to take, instead asking staff to further explore development options and bring more information back, presumably in 2018.

In the park?

With buildable land becoming a premium near the coast, pressure will mount to use parks and develop vacant tracts now providing green space.

» When the developer who suggests building in the park referred to “shrubs and marsh” along a Sugden lake, Taylor substituted “wetlands,” which should be protected. To develop wetlands requires federal permits and mitigation. We’d note that process would postpone a determination of whether the center could go in Sugden Park, delaying redevelopment of a project that could offer smaller, more affordable housing units.

» Sugden “is as close to a passive park as we have,” Taylor said. “To put an 80-foot building in a passive park is probably not the appropriate place.”

On the flip side, it’s not unheard of in Collier County to tap public space for valuable community attractions. For example, there’s the children’s museum (C’mon), at North Collier Regional Park off Livingston Road, and venues in Cambier Park in Naples.

While commissioners asked staff for more information, the key question here is whether the park land is available to a redevelopment project. That’s potentially a big bump in the road. Commissioners need to take the wheel and drive that decision.